God is in Control
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This chapter is a message against the nation of Ethiopia. Ethiopia was an enemy of Israel...and this is in a group of prophecies from Isaiah against these enemy nations. Ethiopia will be left desolate. There will not be anything left...yet in the end, they will turn to the Lord bringing Him a present.
Once again these age old prophecies teach the principle that God is in control in the nations of men.
[Isaiah 18:1] Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings, Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, [2] Which sends ambassadors by sea, Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying, “Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin, To a people terrible from their beginning onward, A nation powerful and treading down, Whose land the rivers divide.” [3] All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth: When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it; And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it. [4] For so the LORD said to me, “I will take My rest, And I will look from My dwelling place Like clear heat in sunshine, Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” [5] For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect And the sour grape is ripening in the flower, He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks And take away and cut down the branches. [6] They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey And for the beasts of the earth; The birds of prey will summer on them, And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them. [7] In that time a present will be brought to the LORD of hosts From a people tall and smooth of skin, And from a people terrible from their beginning onward, A nation powerful and treading down, Whose land the rivers divide— To the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, To Mount Zion."
